The Gears of War 4 multiplayer beta is almost out and to help you understand some of the new features that are coming with the new Gears of War game, Video Gamer has made a video called “8 Things You Need To Know”. We at ICXM.net have highlighted those we consider the most important ones about the upcoming Gears of War game.
To start, Gears of War 4 will include new weapons such as The Dropshot, a new weapon that allows you to shoot a drill and remotely detonate it. There are also new abilities, one of them being the ability to reach over cover and pull your adversary over it and kill him. This new ability is called Yank and Shank, and the other, called Vault Kick, allows you to vault over cover and attack an enemy. One of the most famous abilities of Gears of War has also suffered some changes…I’m talking about the Active Reload ability. Before, active reload was only available once you fired some shots but now you can do it every time without the need to shoot at all, although there’s a cooldown period so you can’t spam it.
There are also new features in the online multiplayer mode, one them is that players will be set into matchmaking using a skill rank system, which is intended to put new players against each other instead of new players versus the more experienced ones. Gears of War 4 will also have a new co-op versus mode where 5 players will be playing against 5 AI controlled bosses, which is intended to help newcomers to get used to the Gears of War gameplay. Still in the multiplayer department there are two new modes that are already known. One is called Dodgeball, and it mixes all of the Gears of War experience with Dodgeball rules, meaning if you get killed you won’t respawn until someone on your team kills an opponent and tags you in order to get back in the match. The other one is called Escalation and it has been called the most tactical mode of Gears of War, and it’s directly intended to be an eSports mode.
Gears of War 4 will also include a card system, similar to REQ Cards used in Halo 5: Guardians. Those cards go from skins to XP boosts, and they will be available in crates, with each crate containing 5 cards, including some vintage items and consumable cards that can be used before each match and will grant you a reward. Even if you don’t win, the card will still be able to be used again until you succeed. With this implementation of the card system it means that the Card Crates will be available to be purchased using real money, meaning that Gears of War 4 will feature microtransactions, although, as in Halo 5, those crates are possible to buy just by playing the game without the need of spending real money.
As for the maps that will be featured in Gears of War 4, there will be 10 maps at launch and any new maps that come monthly to the game will be free to play. Although the maps will all be free, the game will feature a rotation system, meaning that maps will come and go over time. There will also be the possibility to buy the maps in order to play them in private sessions, and in that case only the host of the game session will need to have the map in question and all of the other players will still be able to play it.
You can watch the full Video Gamer video below for some more information.
João is a games journalist, Senior Editor at XDA Developers. They contributed 156 articles to ICXM between 2015–2017, focused on game reviews, Windows and PC, and Xbox news: previously reported for Neowin before joining XDA Developers in 2021, where he leads coverage of Windows, Microsoft, and hardware.